Geller, who lives in New York, tackled the topic "Can Radio Survive? The Answer: The Powerful Personality," along with Lynn Jimenez, business editor at KGO; Dave Sholin, co-host of KFRC's morning show; Melissa McConnell Wilson, veteran DJ and faculty adviser of KVHS Radio, which is staffed by high school students in Contra Costa County; and Robert Unmacht, a consultant with Radio-Info.com, an online radio newsletter.

"The Powerful Personality" portion of the discussion quickly gave way to "Can Radio Survive?" Audience members, many of them radio pros and professors, had their doubts. The industry's problems are at least two-pronged.

"Radio's future could be great - as long as the corporate owners allow it," Jimenez said. But, she noted, "even stations with good profit margins and cash flow are being stripped" - not only of personalities but also of basic personnel. With corporate radio, she said, it's like sausage. "We're taking the stuffing out and leaving the casing."

The second problem is the defection from terrestrial radio by younger listeners, drawn to digital music players, on which they download and program their own music.

An audience member brought up a third challenge for radio: "The commercials have gotten abusive," he said, "to the point where it's not worth it."

"It's called paying the freight," said Geller. She noted that "a good commercial can be as good as anything on the air." But the panel agreed that the good ones are rare, often lost among the ones with abrasive announcers repeating phone numbers ad nauseam.

Unmacht had an explanation.

"The amount of attention given to creativity in commercials is pretty slight," he said. "Agencies don't care. On the local level, they used to have a production director who probably dealt with one station, maybe two. Today he's got eight, so the amount of attention each client gets is going to be minimal."

Another audience member expressed anguish over the loss of younger listeners: "Fifteen- to 20-year-olds don't care about localism or news and information."

Sholin, a veteran of Top 40 radio, said that young music fans still do use the radio.

"In New York," he said, "Z100 can sell out five Giants Stadium shows with kids. Hannah Montana is huge, and radio had a lot to do with it."

But ratings do show a decline in younger listeners, Geller said. Years ago, "radio fell in love with 25 to 54 (an age range coveted by advertisers) and ignored 12-plus (the overall radio audience). When we did that, we didn't serve the younger people, and there wasn't anything on for them. They went from age 9 to 11 or 12 to 15 to 18, with nothing on the radio for them. So when they're 20, why should they turn it on?"

When an audience member asked why there weren't talk stations aimed at young people, one of Wilson's high school broadcasters responded: "We all have very short attention spans."

KGO's Jimenez cited research data indicating that the audience for Internet radio is rapidly growing and that AM and FM radio, in spite of competition from new technologies, is holding its own.

"Seventy-seven percent of Americans expect to continue to listen to AM and FM radio," she noted. "And 78 percent said radio is important in their everyday lives."

Internet radio, Unmacht added, is no longer tethered to computers.

"It's going to go into whatever device you've got," he said. "It's on its way."

Internet radio today is open to all comers, from indie operations run by music fans from their computers to major stations piggybacking online.

Unmacht doesn't worry about a glut.

"There always will be best-sellers," he said. "There are still people who write the book everyone wants to read. With blogging, everybody can write. But we all don't want to read it. The same thing's going to be true even when there are 5 million channels on the Internet. There's still going to be some people you want to follow, that rise above the rest. There still will be superstars."

And, he added, "there will always be personality, and people using audio means to get to those personalities."

There may be fewer of them on commercial radio, but, Wilson says, young talent is on the rise.

"I think the new personalities are the savvy, young, technically adept and also equipped-with-personality people," she said. "They'll be the lifeblood of radio."

HAVE A HART: Al Hartis hosting a series of shows about aging. Hart, who's 80 and has been on the air for 54 years, hosts "Aging Your Way," which airs (and streams live) from 8 to 9 p.m. Mondays on KALW (91.7 FM) and www.agingyourway.com. The six-part series, a production of On Lok Lifeways and the Institute on Aging, began two weeks ago, but you're in time for part two of "Sex Over 60" on Monday. Hart, a news anchor with KCBS for almost 30 years, still pops into the station to chat with John MaddenWednesday mornings, and he's returned to one of his first loves: singing. He's done concerts at Rossmoor and elsewhere, backed by jazz veterans Dean Reilly, Jim Zimmermanand George Yamasaki.

SHADES OF GREEN: Angie Coiro, coming out of what she called a yearlong sabbatical from radio, is now hosting "Green Hour" on KKGN (Green 960). Coiro, whose resume ranges from traffic reporting to hosting "Friday Forum" on KQED-FM (where she won an industry award for an interview with Salman Rushdie) to "Mother Jones Radio" on Air America, is on weekdays from 3 to 4 p.m. The show, she says, is "a daily tossed salad of politics, the environment and the utterly absurd. It's amazing how often all three are covered by the same story."

RANDOM NOTES: KKSF's annual "CD Sampler," usually out in time for the holidays, has finally been released - sort of. It's available via downloading, and PD Ken Jonessays the physical CD should be available "in coming months." For now, the 13-track album is selling in digital form for $9.99, and songs range from new cuts to smooth jazz classics. Titles include "Exotica" by Paul Taylor, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind" by David Benoit, "Mornin' " by George Bensonand Al Jarreau, and "What You Won't Do for Love" by Bobby Caldwell. As always, proceeds go to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and other AIDS organizations. For more info, go to www.kksf.com... R.I.P.: Mike Thompson, popular host of the "Friday Night Request Program" on big-band station KCEA (89.1 FM) in Atherton, died April 6, at age 73 ... Fare thee well to Pete Scott, a DJ at KSFO in the '60s and '70s. He died April 19 at age 70, of cancer, in San Rafael. Scott had worked with the KGO comedy team of Jim Coyle and Mal Sharpe when he was hired as a part-time DJ. He later did a midmorning talk show, became assistant PD and rose to program director. After leaving KSFO in 1974, Scott formed a production company, creating everything from commercials to radio specials. He also produced music with composer Pat Williams, said writer Francine Schwartz, his former wife and the mother of their daughter, Zia. "He loved and was good at putting things together, whether it was a music production or a dinner party," she said. "He adored connecting individuals. We loved to call him the master of ceremonies."